Muddied Waters

Legal dramas, like doctor and cop shows, provide great fodder for television and movies.  Vying for our attention (and maybe the Academy voters’ as well) as 2019 draws to a close are two “compelling” based-on-true-story legal dramas, the upcoming save-an-innocent-man-from-death-row movie ‘Just Mercy’ featuring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx, and the civil litigation sue-DuPont sleeper ‘Dark Waters’ starring Mark Ruffalo.

 

‘Dark Waters’ is based on a NYT Magazine article published back in 2016 called “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” which (though I haven’t read it myself) detailed the PFOA (“forever chemical”) scandal and how a tenacious “legal eagle” torts lawyer named Robert Bilott (played by Ruffalo) took on the chemical giant DuPont in a high profile civil case over the dangers of Teflon spanning some two decades and won.  Yes, you read that right.  Two decades and it’s still ongoing today.
 

In its teaser trailer, DW would have us believe that it’s a paranoia-filled suspense thriller with the scene of Ruffalo hesitating when he was about to start his car (is it going to blow up?) in an empty building parking lot.  While part of me understands why the marketers of the film felt they had to mislead us like that, I still can’t forgive them for it because DW is exactly the opposite, a two hour and six minute bore of a movie that almost put me to sleep.  DW is a perfect example that civil cases dragging on for years and years are simply not very exciting or nearly as compelling as its more glamorous “criminal” cousin.  You won’t find indignant self-righteous Marine colonels bellowing in defiance at his good-looking young JAG prosecutors (played by Tom Cruise and Demi Moore circa 1992) that they “can’t handle the truth!” here.  What we get instead are half-chastened stiff DuPont executives playing a long game of give-and-take.  Yawn.

Grade: C